Category: Spelling

I’m posting this from my new tablet, and its is actually quicker to use than a keyboard.

On Thursday, I plan on writing a post about freelance writing. I’m planning to include information about various content mill sites, the work invoked, the application processes and how often they payout. So, look forward to that? 🙂

Sadly all you get to read today is a rant on how I love words and a few vocabulary words.

Vocabulary! It rocks, in my opinion. Perhaps I’m biased because I’m a nerd, but I find words fascinating. They gives us the ability to externalize our internal thoughts; how is that not fascinating? To me, words are like colors. You can buy the 12 or 24 pack if you like to keep your life simple; however, you are going to have a difficult time expressing yourself precisely. If it were me, I’d buy the largest package of crayons they sold. Why limit your ability to express yourself with a weak vocabulary? The more words you know, the more likely you are to have people understand you. This just came to me, “Vocabulary is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” Oh, random Forrest Gump reference, but a great movie.

I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to include the word “amortize” more effectively in my title. 🙂

For my first post, I’m going to stick to a few general grammar tips, along with posting several vocabulary words. My goal, which I’d like to share with you as well, is to learn something new, relating to writing, everyday. Vocabulary words will not only increase my repertoire of words, but yours as well!

Example: “The mood of the crows was restless and turbid, and any spark could have turned then into a mob.”

Amortize [a-mər-tīz] — To pay off something, such as a mortgage, by making small payments over a period of time; it is most commonly used as a legal term.

Example: “For tax purposes, they chose to amortize most of the business’s start-up costs over a three-year period.”

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Some Grammar Tips: The Semicolon

My 11th grade Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. History teacher said something in class one period that has remained with me to this day. She was discussing the horrible work that some students had turned in and decided it was time to offer some grammatical advice. It was on that day that I learned how to properly use a semicolon. Shocking, I know, seeing as how I managed to pass grade school and two years of honors high school English without ever being informed about the beautiful, fluid and useful nature of the semicolon. She taught us the basic use of a semicolon… wait, no she didn’t. All she told us what that we should put semicolons before “however” or “but,” and that was about it. She was also a big fan of Tab soda. The things that stick with you after almost 15 years.

I digress…

Rules concerning the correct usage of grammar have changed since my days in high school. Hell, the world has done a complete 180° when it comes to communication and language, it seems. But, back to grammar: very few rules are set in stone these days, as we have let American language merge with popular culture to create an ever-changing vernacular. I consider myself a prescriptivist when it comes to language, so it makes me sad that the “pop culture” phenomenon has not only invaded our lives, but also our language. I could think of examples, but I think it’d be better if you did for yourself; then, you’ll be able to reflect upon how different groups and cultures within American have affected the English language.

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Enough talking about language; now let us learn the proper way to use it. Semicolons separate two clauses that could normally stand on their own. As my beloved Grammar Girl refers to semicolons, this half-colon/half-comma symbol is used as a sentence-splicer; i.e., semicolons splice nasty sentences and turn them into pretty ones.

(A bad) example: “It was quite cold this morning, I wore my scarf to get warm.”

Why is this sentence in poor form? Upon further scrutiny, you can see that it contains two complete sentences on each side of the comma. A way of writing the sentence that utilizes the semicolon is to say, “It was quite cold this morning; I wore my scarf to get warm.”

If you have too many short sentences in a row, then you could benefit from changing things up a bit, such as by connecting the two shorter sentences by a semicolon. Semicolons can be effective tools: using a semicolon to join two sentences draws the reader’s attention to the relationship between the clauses.

However, the most important thing to remember when using a semicolon is to make sure that the main clauses you are joining together are closely related to one another. Surely, you would never be caught saying, “The milk in the fridge is bad; I need to vacuüm the living room” and expect not to get strange looks. While each sentence can stand on its own, joining them with a semicolon only leads to confusion for the reason that the two sentences are not related. You have to take an axe to bad sentences such as these joined by deceitful commas.

You may ask yourself, why not just use a period? A period would have sufficed in place of the semicolon, but wouldn’t you rather mix things up a bit? Nothing conveys that you are a good writer like the ability to successfully sprinkle uncommon punctuation throughout your paper, including semi-colons, colons and “em” dashes – each of which will be addressed in upcoming posts.

Atypical punctuation not only adds variety to your sentence structure, but it makes you sound smart, too. 🙂 And, to some women, having large vocabulary is a sexy.

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That’s all for today. Tomorrow I’ll try to post from the book, “Getting the Words Right.” It’s more of style guide and is a great read!

Thanks for reading my first real post on my new blog. FEEDBACK is welcome aka I never get blog comments. haha.

❤ jt

PS. If you have any grammar questions that you would like answered, leave your question in one of the comment forms and I’ll be more than happy to solve them!!! I thrive off of challenge!

I wanted to start a blog that offers grammar information, style advice and interesting vocabulary words… so, here it is! *imagine you are at a grand unveiling and they just dropped the fancy velvet curtain they use to disguise the surprise.

As far as posting goes: Ideally, I would post every day; realistically, it will probably only be a few times a week.

I hope everyone gets the joke in my site name. It’s somewhat derivative, so I’ll explain in case you have no idea to what I am referring. There’s a song by a rap artist known as Chamillionaire — I have no idea how they come up with these names — called “Ridin’ Dirty.” Weird Al, as he does best, did a parody of the song and named it “White and Nerdy.”

For those of you uneducated on the Weird Al version:

“Do vector calculus just for fun, I ain’t got a gat but I gotta soldering gun.” Ha, I love it.

As you can deduce, I picked my name because it sounds like “Ridin’ Nerdy.” Oh, I’m sure I’ve made it too convoluted to be funny; that’s alright. It’s a good descriptor: After all, I am writing whilst being a nerdy Caucasian. 😀

Comments are welcome, and encouraged, since I would like to encourage discussions about language. It’s a very interesting topic, even more so when you’re paycheck relies on your handle of it.

Julie and Ender kitty: Anime Style

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Julie is a pro bono philosopher and proud nerd who is convinced that she was a cat in a past life. She enjoys learning new things and loves curling up with a good Stephen King book. In addition to reading, Julie enjoys Japanese culture, cryptograms, video games, and playing fetch with her Maine Coon cat, Ender. She's been a writer since childhood and is thrilled that she can now make a living doing something that she loves. You can find her work on awesome websites such as GeekSmash.com.

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